


Comprehensible Fear

by Glinda



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, TARDIS POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-29
Updated: 2007-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-07 14:24:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/pseuds/Glinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She never understood why he was so scared, now she does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comprehensible Fear

Fear.

Her other is scared. She can feel it streaming off his skin and into her telepathic circuits. He's terrified, the fight or flight signals overwhelming her more rational sensors. She struggles to locate the source of danger while following his fraught directions.

Jack. Run.

She doesn't understand. She didn't understand when he took them away from him in the first place, why he'd lied to the child about the boy. He'd refused to hear her whispers that the boy was alive. His wilful avoidance of the boy every time she'd shown him where to go. She struggles against his sudden force of will, sentient though she is, she remains his tame star, and thus subject to his will. But she holds on, hoping that if the boy can just make it through the doors into her sanctuary then all her questions will be answered.

Faster. Please.

She loses the battle just as he reaches her. Sorrow. She will slide through his fingers. She doesn't. He clings to her as she leaves the planet, his flying leap sending them ricocheting into the far future. She can feel him screaming through the vortex, feel his fear as well as the other's. Reaching out to the young human (not as young as he once was, older than he seems) to calm him, impossibly alive clinging to her shell. Recoiling in shock and fear.

Fact. Wrong.

She understands why her Other ran. Unchanging and unchanged. Stillness amongst the constant ebb and flow of the universe. Every single one of her senses scream the wrongness of it. Far and fast, without logic or coherent intent she flees across the universe.

 

Fault. Mine. Sorrow.

She did this. At least, when the child and she were one they did this. Saved him. Saved him forever. This is why there were rules. Why the Timelords dare not look into the hearts of their greatest creations. The power of a sentient sun captured in its dying moment. Ancient and forever, she understands why mortals should never know such power. Even with her guidance the child could not control that power. She tried to save her friend, and created a fact. A fixed point in time in space. Impossible. But True. She accepts it, after all her time with the Other she's grown used to experiencing the 'impossible'. So still. Forever caught at the moment before dying. She knows that loneliness all too well. Burning at the centre of the universe like them. How can that be wrong?

Hope.

The final act of the time war. After all that destruction she brought life, forever and always. As though in saving one, she could somehow make up for all those she had failed to save. She feels him failing. Too far, too fast, they're spinning. Could even he survive the Vortex if he fell? There are creatures that live within it true, but she wouldn't willing leave anything to the Reapers or the Chronovores. Especially not someone once precious to her.

Land. Land. Land.

Fighting instincts and nature is difficult but necessary. He must not fall, he must be kept safe. Whatever he has become, whatever she has done to him, he is still one of her own, their responsibility. Now more than ever. He falls, life expired once more. But its alright. They've landed. She's faced up to her responsibility, now its his turn. She hopes the Other is ready to face up to his. She leaves him with no choice.


End file.
